Okay, it was Sunday afternoon and Dad had surprised us all with a trip to town for Sunday dinner! Having finished dinner, Dad (actually, Perry—yikes) drove over to the recycling machine at Safeway so I could recycle some bottles that were in the van. I got out of the van and then realized that there was quite a crowd recycling and decided to wait since I was feeling rather shy...
When I finally did go over, there were two young men standing near one of the machines, talking. I had come just in time to hear a really short dark-haired Safeway carryout telling the skinny bowlegged guy who was recycling why he’d rather be on a particular kind of war ship!
“You didn’t get your receipt,” I said to the skinny lad.
“Yeah, I did,” he said, looking at me like I was crazy, “it’s in my pocket.”
“Oh,” I said, “maybe the machine didn’t notice that you took it.” It was still saying the amount he’d recycled.
He had been digging around in his pocket and didn’t find it so the carryout pushed the button again and when the receipt still didn’t come out, he opened up the front of the machine, whipped out a knife and started poking around inside and mumbling something about the contacts.
His friend, who I noticed was wearing a camouflage belt, whipped out his knife and said, “The best eighty bucks I ever spent!”
“That’s all?” the carry out said while a little shred of paper came out of the machine.
“Well, $79.99 to be exact!” Then he started listing all the different blades and tools that were on it. The carryout closed the machine and the skinny guy said, “Man, it ate my quarters!” And they started talking about what ever it was that they were talking about before.
“Will it work? Can I recycle?” I asked, directing my question to the carry out.
“Oh, yeah,” he said nonchalantly, “it‘s fixed.” looking at me like I had just appeared. Then they walked off.... two country lads who would pay eighty dollars for a knife and still enlist in the military, one a carryout at Safeway and the other an Ace Hardware employee. It might not seem so funny to you but when I got in the car and told my sisters they laughed and made me post this. And in case any of you were wondering, the knife did the job and I got my receipt. How many carry outs in AZ would have been impressed with a certain pocket knife??
